Lord Cendariak's entire body erupted. Tongues of hungry, lashing fire flared from his arms and legs, chest and shoulders. They enveloped him, concealing the outline of his humanoid shape, transforming him into a pillar of pure inferno. Two crimson eyes glittered amidst the conflagration.

"She'll plead for mercy... Beg to become my concubine. And when I ravish her, she'll scream as she burns."

The demon lord's laughter sparked and crackled, filling the world with the noise of roasting, crisping flesh and charred, snapping bones. His assembled minions added their own voices, fanning the flames of their master's merriment. Imps and succubi, hellhounds and soulstealers, all laughed and ignited. Fire danced on their red hides, merging into one great pyre that shrouded the fiendish host and licked at the emerald sky far above.

His blazing horde's apocalyptic laughter continued for several moments. Then quietness rippled over them like the folds of a smothering blanket, stilling their gleeful maws. The grand fire parted as their flames withdrew, the entire edifice falling asunder and collapsing into hundreds of little tongues which flickered uncertain around their skulls and shoulders. For their master, mighty Lord Cendariak, had fallen silent. His own potent inferno had diminished. The pillar of hellfire was gone, revealing the outline of his burning body once more. Irate orange-redness seethed in the shape of limbs and muscles, around the dark metal that girded his calves, loin, and chest, which adorned his brow in a spiked crown. The demon lord's head was turned to the side.

As one, the assembled host followed Cendariak's crimson gaze. And they issued a collective gasp so deep that the sudden absence of air almost extinguished their flames.

There was a red imp on the horizon. A fire imp, one of their own. And he was... dancing?

The little red creature leapt and capered, spun and pirouetted -- putting his body through the most absurd gyrations. His legs kicked and stomped. His arms thrashed and clawed. His head bobbed this way and that, as though guided by the same imperceptible music which governed his scarlet limbs with its hidden melodies. The creature's voice drifted to them, audible over the suppressed crackle of breathless fire.

"Ya ya ya! Zip ya ya! Argh ya yip!"

A murmur undulated through the demons, making their flames quiver. An imp -- a lowly, wretched, weak, worthless imp -- dared to dance, caper, and sing in the burning lord's presence? It was incredible! Unheard of! Their stares passed from the brazen little fiend to Cendariak, wondering how he would deal with such insolence. But for several moments their master did nothing. He merely gazed, dumbstruck by the sheer effrontery.

"Spear..." he said at last.

One of his minions darted forward, fiery tresses billowing behind her and searing the air in her wake. She held out an ebon lance -- a weapon forged from a single piece of black metal, heated and hammered into a long gnarled shaft and a broad blade shaped like a tongue of surging flame. Cendariak tore it from her grasp.

His red eyes glared at the distant imp. The creature was still leaping and spinning, flailing and chanting, even as the demonic lord took aim.

The weapon flew from his hand. Dozens of eyes followed its flight.

It zipped over the purple grass, parting the air with a hiss. Steam whispered from its length in snaking tendrils. The black blade caught the imp in mid-leap. It smashed through the diminutive demon's skull, shattering the bone, scattering red chunks of brain across the ground. His body fell in a heap.

Lord Cendariak gestured. Several fiends sprinted to the carcass, their eager hands grabbing for the weapon whilst shoving their rivals aside. But they paused in the middle of their scuffle to stare at the imp's corpse.

When the demon runners returned, one of them had the dead imp under his arm.

"Lord Cendariak..." he hissed.

He thrust the dead fiend towards him, and every burning eye fastened on the creature's back. A dagger's hilt was embedded there. It pinned a piece of parchment to the lifeless red flesh.

"Krezzor is mine!" Baron Nembulur declared.

"All hail Nembulur!"

"Hail the lord of the sloth demons!"

Thousands of fiends thronged the purple plains. Some were the loyal minions who'd fought at his behest and raised his banner in triumph, others former foes -- vanquished fools who'd followed his rivals but now recognized his supreme might. All of them yelled his praises. They raised their hands to the green heavens and cried out in the name of their lord and master.

Nembulur allowed the rightful adulation to wash over him. Then he yawned.

"Now..." He half-stifled a second yawn. "...I shall celebrate my victory by sleeping for a thousand years!"

The demons roared and cheered.

"Nembulur! Nembulur! Nembulur!"

"Silence! How am I supposed to sleep with that racket?"

The fiends looked suitably chagrined.

"Nembulur! Nembulur! Nembulur!" they whispered.

That was more like it...

The baron yawned, entered the palace, sauntered into his bed chamber, and flung himself onto the glorious softness. In a split-second he was snoring. Then the bed flew through the cosmos, while he slumbered amongst the smiling stars.

Nembulur grumbled as the dream parted, and the real world assaulted his ears and eyelids. Waking up was so tiresome... And now he had to marshal his troops before the morrow's battle. That would be exhausting.... Well, a few more minutes in bed wouldn't hurt. Besides, if he were better rested, he'd be able to...

The sloth demon's train of thought evaporated into a snore.

Some minutes later his dreams yielded once more, returning him to his physical bed instead of his oneiric one, and bringing forth fresh grumbling.

The battle... He should open his eyes and summon his warriors. But his bed was nice and warm. Soft too. And... He stretched his arm out under the sheets, reaching for his concubine. Coupling would be a lot of effort. But a little cuddle might help him sleep.

A beautiful green face stared at him from wide, lifeless eyes. The neck beneath ended in a jagged azure stump. The demoness' trunkless torso and dismembered limbs were heaped beside it in a pool of blue blood that had seeped into the sheets.

A rolled up piece of parchment protruded from between her breasts.

"The wards?" Princess Kherazade asked.

"We haven't-"

The bottom of the demoness' fist thudded against the arm of her usurped throne. The robed fiend trembled.

"How long?" She rose to her feet and padded down the gleaming steps to the throne room floor. "Well?"

"I... I don't know, mistress!"

He fell to his knees, gazed up at her blue features, and trembled. She cuffed him around the ear and sent him sprawling.

"I need those wards empowered!"

"Brach'Xell'Ctharat'Sezrachus' magical defenses were complex! We-"

Kherazade's foot pressed down on his chest, driving the wind from his lungs.

The blue demoness growled, but she lifted her foot off his ribcage. He drew in great breaths of air, rolled over, and began to grovel.

"M'chartha..." She turned to a tall, muscular crimson fiend. "Can we hold the castle without the wards?"

"We lost too many of our warriors cutting our way here. And more today destroying Huwbluch's siege engines." M'chartha glared at the groveling caster. "If we'd known this fool couldn't raise the defenses..."

"I will! I'll find a way! I swear it!"

The assembled demonesses glared at the groveling male. M'chartha indicated one of her heavy, curved swords with a nod. But Kherazade shook her head. She needed him alive.

Kherazade nodded her approval. Faldeema had earned the right to boast. Mere hours ago, her great force of spellcasters had assembled in front of the castle gates and unleashed their eldritch bombardment on any foe who dared to approach -- blasting them limb from limb, littering the field with charred gore. Thus the fastness remained in the hands of the princess, even without the protective wards shielding it.

"Jeenhan, have your assassins..." the princess began. Her eyes swept the demonesses, and her blue brow furrowed. "Where's Jeenhan?"

They were muttering their uncertainty and shrugging their shoulders when bounding footfalls sounded in the corridor beyond the great arched entrance.

Two winged succubi half-ran and half-flapped their way into the chamber. They held a corpse up between them -- a black-skinned fiend whose head lolled with each pace, revealing a gaping green grin across her throat.

"Our patrol found her!" one of the succubi said. "Look!"

They turned the body round, revealing the knife that had been driven to its guard in Jeenhan's spine -- fastening a piece of parchment to her carcass.

A symbol was inscribed beside it, in the same magenta ink -- one they knew well. It was the mark of Brach'Xell'Ctharat'Sezrachus. There was another message below it, scrawled in messy black ink and festooned with smears and splodges. This line was written in the common tongue of the surface world.